0:00

How

0:00

do you find opportunities in

0:02

hard situations? And are you ready to

0:04

reach your wouldn't go back moment? That's

0:07

what I help you do in my new book, which

0:09

just like this podcast is called Build

0:11

For Tomorrow. It's a guide to help

0:13

anyone who's going through a big change in

0:15

their work or life and is full of

0:17

x sizes, lessons, and big

0:20

concepts you need to know, like how

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to work your next job and how to change

0:24

before you must. along with stories

0:26

from the smartest people in business and

0:28

the history of innovation. Stuff

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that frankly I learned while making this

0:32

podcast and then I expanded to figure out

0:34

how it can help you. Because this book

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is designed to help you thrive. Reinvention,

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it's not about grit. It's process anyone

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then go get it. Hild for tomorrow

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is available in hardcover audio

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wherever you find books, whether that's

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Amazon, Barnes and Noble, your local retailer,

0:59

or jason pfeiffer dot com slash

1:01

book. Again, my book is called

1:04

Build For Tomorrow.

1:07

Today, I am doing something a little

1:09

different. I have been hosting

1:11

this podcast for years, and

1:13

I always hope that each episode provides

1:15

a unique lens into how we grapple

1:17

with chains. you know, grapple with

1:19

the new scary things in our lives.

1:22

Sometimes, it is about how people of

1:24

the past rejected innovations like

1:26

radio and even forks and teddy bears

1:28

and what that can tell us about the big moral

1:31

panics of today over social media

1:33

and screens. Sometimes it's about

1:35

the things that we think are new and terrible

1:37

today, like participation trophies or

1:39

checked out workers and how actually those

1:41

things are not new at all. And sometimes

1:44

it's more about us. and how our

1:46

brains work and how we process the big things

1:48

in our lives. But how

1:50

does all that tie together? can

1:53

all these random stories help you be

1:55

a more innovative thinker or take bolder

1:57

action? Well,

2:00

I was recently on a fantastic podcast

2:02

called The Jordan Harbinger Show.

2:05

Jordan interviews super interesting people

2:07

and turns their insights into action, and

2:09

I have been both a fan and friend

2:11

of his for years. You should totally check

2:13

the show out. He had me on to

2:15

talk about my book, which like this

2:17

podcast is also called Build For Tomorrow,

2:19

but we ended up having a wide ranging

2:21

discussion about changing technology, the

2:24

future of work, and how to find opportunity

2:26

in adversity. I just think you'll find

2:28

it really interesting and useful. So on

2:30

this episode, I am going to play you

2:32

the interview that aired on the Jordan

2:34

Harpinger show. And I'm gonna

2:37

pick it up at

2:38

the end of his intro of me.

2:40

We tend to not look at technology as

2:43

a slow moving, constantly changing

2:45

series of small events. But we get distracted

2:47

by what is the newest and the loudest. Remember

2:50

when people thought video games are running the

2:52

youth and before that it was radio or

2:54

pinball or television, whatever. Politicians

2:57

love this because they can get clicks by playing to the

2:59

moral panic. People thought comic books

3:01

were gonna be bad for society and it turned out,

3:03

gee, when kids read a lot, they get better at reading.

3:06

So if we panic and we

3:08

react knee jerk to change, then

3:10

we're not going to correctly identify the problem.

3:12

And if we can't do that, we obviously can't

3:14

create solutions either. Again, this is

3:16

a fun and wide range in conversation with

3:18

a really smart friend of mine that I know you're gonna

3:20

enjoy. So here we go. With Jason Pfeiffer,

3:24

I

3:27

love looking back at history and seeing how

3:29

seemingly unconnected events actually

3:31

had a massive impact on one another or

3:33

were causal in some way.

3:36

And tell me about how the Bubonic Plague,

3:38

so the Black Death ends up changing the

3:40

labor market of all things and how we are actually

3:42

still, I guess, you'd say, feeling the effects

3:44

of a plague that happened centuries ago. I mean,

3:47

feeling is one way to say it, benefiting from

3:49

it is another. I was fascinated to

3:51

learn this and I did at the very beginning

3:53

of the pandemic because It was

3:55

like March or April twenty twenty. And I'm thinking

3:57

to myself, we don't know what's coming, but

4:00

did anything good come out

4:02

of the worst version of this? that we

4:04

can think of. Because if so, then there's hope for

4:06

whatever's coming next. Yeah. I call this guy

4:08

Andrew Rabin, medieval scholar at University

4:11

of Louisville. I love that guy. I really suggest

4:13

maybe Jordan you have one of these, I suggest having

4:15

a favorite academic. Like, somebody who could just

4:17

call who's gonna respond I

4:20

got a weird question about something that happened

4:22

seven hundred years ago. You got some time. And

4:24

so I said to Andrew, what good

4:26

came out of the bubonic plague? and he said actually a whole bunch

4:28

of really fascinating stuff did. Then he told

4:30

me this story. So quick

4:33

for people who remember this from history class,

4:35

the medieval economy was a load and search

4:37

system. means the lord's own the land.

4:39

They also own the Serfs and the Serfs worked

4:41

the land for free. We're talking about slavery. And

4:43

the Bubonic Play comes along at middle

4:46

of the thirteen hundreds and it kills

4:48

upwards of sixty percent of Europe. Uppers of sixty

4:50

percent of Europe. Wow. Go on. Try to process

4:52

that. It's impossible. Right? I mean, it just means,

4:54

like, sixty percent of people you know, gone.

4:57

That's crazy. rich poor didn't matter.

4:59

You know, once the worst of it or I would

5:01

even know how to describe what the worst of it anyway.

5:03

Once something, The Lord say, you know, it's time

5:05

to get back to work. And so they go to the surface.

5:08

And they say, let's get back to the land. You gotta

5:10

start making some money. But here's the thing. Something

5:12

has changed. what has changed is that there are no

5:14

longer enough serfs for

5:16

all the lords because they all died, which

5:18

means that you have lords who are

5:20

going to serfs like multiple lawyers going

5:22

to serfs saying, hey, come work for me. No. No. No.

5:25

No. No. No. No. I'll give you this. Come work for

5:27

me. And the serfs realizes something has changed.

5:29

What has changed is that they have leverage.

5:31

And now, they can start to

5:33

demand compensation for

5:35

their work. Or they can

5:37

say, you know what? Screw it. I'm not interested in this anymore,

5:39

and they can move to the city and start first merchant

5:42

And

5:42

this is the birth really

5:45

in Europe of the

5:47

employment contract as we know it. The idea

5:49

that labor has a value and that

5:51

the people who do that work should be compensated for that

5:53

value. I mean, basically, Jordan, the thing the

5:55

reason why a lot of people listening to right

5:57

now is because they would like to figure out a way to

5:59

make

5:59

more money in their own lives or something like that

6:02

comes out of this moment. Now,

6:04

terrible things happen. we

6:05

lost sixty percent of Europe as a result,

6:08

wouldn't wanna say we wanna

6:10

lose sixty percent of our people. But I was gonna say, I

6:12

think we're on the same page here. We gotta kill

6:14

half the people on plan. That'll

6:18

be better for us. Right. A little more than half

6:20

of the fact. So right. But the thing is, like, The reason

6:22

why I I love this story and why

6:25

I put it early in the book is because I want

6:27

us to remember that we have no matter

6:29

what came before. Right? No matter how hard

6:31

moment of change is, we have an opportunity for

6:33

what I like to call a wouldn't go back a moment.

6:35

Sixty percent of Europe dying terrible. Nobody

6:37

would opt for that. but it happened.

6:40

There was no choice there. And so the best

6:42

thing that we can do is look at it and say, well, what

6:44

good can we make of this? what

6:46

can we get to where we say I have

6:48

something new and valuable and I would not

6:50

want to go back to a time before I had it.

6:52

That's our only option. Okay. So everybody's

6:54

talked about remote work was always there. Most

6:56

didn't take advantage of it. Companies thought it was

6:58

impossible. Now they know they not only is

7:00

it possible, I guess, there's a different

7:02

schools of thought here, but, oh, my workers are happier

7:05

and better, or I can get leverage and acquire

7:07

better talent if I offer remote work Now the

7:09

commercial real estate market has to lower

7:11

prices and that may be even toast

7:14

in certain cities. I do wonder how

7:16

we'll see this play out in the next fifty years

7:18

or longer ago. Do you have any guesses?

7:21

My guess is that what

7:23

you will see play out is

7:25

a combination of the best of what

7:27

came before and the beginnings

7:30

of what we have now and where we're going. People ask

7:32

you about this a lot when we're trying to think about future

7:34

of work and this really fascinating

7:36

stuff going on right now. Like, the four day work week

7:38

is a really interesting experiment. Is it France

7:40

or the UK doing that? One of the some European

7:42

country is doing that. Yeah. think the UK

7:44

is running an experiment right now. Iceland ran

7:47

a national experiment, and it went so well that a

7:49

lot companies there have transferred over. And

7:51

a lot of this goes back to every, like, the first time that a lot

7:53

of people heard four day work week was Japan,

7:55

Microsoft Japan ran this study where they

7:57

went down to four days of work a week and

7:59

productivity did not drop. Now just

8:02

to be, like, really clear, where you're not talking about

8:04

four twelve hour days of work. Right? We're

8:06

talking about four normal days of work,

8:08

literally just eliminating a day

8:10

of work. and productivity did not drop.

8:12

How did that happen? Well, it's because you start

8:14

to rethink the way that you work, the pace

8:16

that you work, you eliminate meetings that completely

8:19

unnecessary. You find all these efficiencies. And

8:22

as a result, people are happier and they're getting

8:24

the same amount done. And so a lot of companies

8:26

now as people have rethought what

8:28

they want from their jobs, what

8:30

they are willing to sacrifice for

8:33

their careers, they start to say, you know, I'm

8:35

looking for different balance here. And as a result,

8:38

Companies are starting to think, well, how can we shift

8:40

the way in which we are

8:42

operating so that we can create an

8:44

environment where the best talent wants to be?

8:46

So we shift to and a bunch of companies

8:49

are doing this. This is not just experiment stuff, and it's

8:51

not just in Iceland. There are plenty of companies in America that

8:53

are doing this. Japan was one of the countries to take

8:55

this. I feel like they would be the last people were like,

8:57

you know what? We need to work less. And while

8:59

we're at it, maybe we drink a little bit less too.

9:01

And to bed at reasonable time. Right. Because they

9:03

have such a strong -- Right. -- work culture

9:06

that dominates their culture. But, you know, Japanese

9:08

love efficiency. That's true. So this is super

9:10

interesting. I called a bunch of companies that have been running

9:12

four day workweeks to ask how it's been going.

9:15

And the most memorable thing

9:17

that anybody said was this woman who runs,

9:19

like, issues like a head of people or whatever at a company

9:21

called buffer tech company. They're about a

9:23

year in now to the four day workweek experiment.

9:25

and she said, people are they're really happy. They

9:28

love it. She was talking to somebody recently who said

9:30

that they would have to make an extra one hundred

9:32

thousand dollars at another job to make them

9:34

go back to five days a week. Wow. That's

9:37

a lot that's a huge change.

9:39

Huge change. Right? Like, if that's how you value that

9:41

time, that says a lot. but here's so

9:43

interesting. After about a year,

9:46

she

9:46

started to hear some complaints. And the

9:48

complaint was people started to

9:50

feel disconnected, from

9:52

their colleagues. Because, you know, when

9:54

you shift to four days of work a week, you're eliminating

9:56

all those meetings. You're eliminating like hanging out in

9:58

Slack you're eliminating all the kind

10:00

of downtime that seems

10:02

like it was pointless, but actually was creating

10:05

bonding and culture. And so when you

10:07

eliminate that, after a while, you start to feel

10:09

disconnected from your colleagues. So now, the

10:11

people at buffer are not saying, oh my

10:13

god, this is a terrible disaster and we

10:15

have to go back to five a week because that's

10:18

not the right answer. Right? I mean, I I think that whenever

10:20

we face a problem, a question of

10:22

trying to manage change The thing that we should

10:24

not ask is, is this perfect? Because

10:26

that's a useless question. Nothing's ever perfect.

10:28

Instead, the better question is, are our new problems

10:31

better than our old problems? And in

10:33

this case, the answer is, yes. Because

10:35

people are happy. Retention is

10:37

very strong because people love the support that

10:39

they're getting. but they have this problem. This

10:41

problem is that they're feeling disconnected. So now they gotta solve that. And so

10:43

they're experimenting with all these different ways. Can they build

10:45

in these little microbonding moments

10:47

throughout the day or whatever? And anyway, the reason

10:49

why I tell you that is because

10:51

I don't think that the future of

10:53

work

10:53

looks like what

10:54

we had before the pandemic, but I don't

10:56

think it also looks like whatever our current

10:59

experiments are because our current experiments

11:01

are really only going to drive us to learning

11:03

more like buffer is learning right now. what

11:05

will come in the future will be a integration

11:08

of the best of the old, the best of the new, and best of what's

11:10

coming next. Interesting. I like that. That was little

11:12

bit of an aside, but I was curious to your there because I

11:14

know this is something that you're always kind of you're

11:16

always waiting in those waters for

11:18

entrepreneur and for your own show.

11:20

So the big takeaway here is

11:22

that crisis is opportunity. Force

11:25

change can produce good things, but

11:27

we should maybe wanna make those changes on

11:29

our own terms. So instead of waiting for a massive pandemic

11:31

to SWEIGH MILLIONS OF US

11:34

THAT CHANGES THE LABOUR MARKET, MAYBE

11:36

WE MAKE THE MOVE BEFOREhand. I WANT TO

11:38

JUST ACCOUNT THAT OUR TEAM HAS BEEN WORKING REMOTE

11:40

FOR LIFE fifteen years before because

11:42

we were too cheap to buy office space. That seems less

11:44

like seeing the future and more like a broken clock

11:46

is still right two times a day. Well, I

11:48

think that what you'll find is that there are even

11:51

more innovations and efficiencies,

11:53

things that you can find now that

11:55

new tools are available for, you know,

11:57

communication, for operating work remotely.

11:59

I mean, the thing is that Teams that were doing this

12:01

before the pandemic were doing it with what

12:04

we now would consider to be pretty archaic

12:06

tools. Fair enough. Even just in the last few years.

12:08

It's been amazing, remarkable to see

12:10

how many people, how many entrepreneurs looked around

12:13

and said, you know what, there are new needs. And

12:15

instead of being very concerned about holding

12:17

on to how to serve old needs, I'm

12:19

gonna start developing things based on what

12:21

people want right now. That's where

12:23

innovation comes from and that's what the most adaptable

12:25

people do. Another concept I really like

12:27

to apply to my own life is that

12:30

failures often look like winds,

12:32

but you have to zoom out far enough on the

12:34

timeline. For example, you wrote about this

12:37

in the book.

12:37

Netflix tried to sell itself to

12:39

blockbuster for was it fifty

12:41

million dollars, which is hilarious because that's

12:43

like a week of revenue or something in Netflix

12:45

now? maybe not even that. Right. Now it's worth

12:48

two hundred plus billion dollars or at least

12:50

this is publishing of the book. Who knows? The market's crazy

12:52

right now? Yeah. Right. That may have been outdated

12:54

by now. Yeah. Like, don't check your net look stuck. Take

12:56

my word for it for the sake of this conversation. But it

12:58

probably seemed like such an epic failure

13:00

at the time. You know, like, oh, blockbuster. That

13:02

was our big exit. What are we gonna do

13:05

now? I've got a warehouse full of

13:07

DVDs and these little red envelopes. I'm

13:09

such a loser. I would imagine the conversations

13:11

kinda went like that. either to themselves or to

13:13

their significant others. The wonderful thing

13:16

about that story is that reed

13:18

hasting at the time in which

13:20

he was trying to sell blockbuster, could have

13:22

very easily gone home and said,

13:24

I have failed. I have failed at

13:27

building a company that I can sell

13:29

and now it's just downhill from here.

13:31

Instead, what he did was he clearly looked at this

13:34

as an individual moment in time. Just

13:36

one. One of what was going to be many.

13:38

And when you are willing to

13:40

and able to zoom out and I know it's

13:42

hard. Believe me. I have many

13:45

times on almost daily basis

13:47

where something happens and it doesn't go my way

13:49

and I feel like, damn it, that is the end of it

13:51

all. But If we are willing

13:53

to say, you know, everything that happens is simply

13:55

a point on a continuum. Well, then

13:57

we can learn something from that point. We can

13:59

say, you know, this moment that feels like failure

14:02

is actually data. We can think of failure as

14:04

data, and it starts to inform

14:06

the next thing that we do. You know, Have

14:09

you heard this stat, which I really hate, which

14:11

is that nine out of ten businesses fail

14:13

within four years? Right? Is that the thing nine

14:15

out of ten businesses fail within four years or most

14:17

small businesses fail within four years. And that's

14:19

so discouraging if you're thinking about starting a

14:21

small business, especially if it's your first time doing

14:23

it because you're like, geez, I'm not special enough to

14:25

be one of the minority that

14:28

makes it, why would I be that?

14:30

Right? That's right. It makes it seem

14:32

like trying something new is

14:35

not even worth it. Because if nine

14:37

out of ten businesses fail and look, this is

14:39

like you don't have to be thinking about starting

14:41

business in order to feel this because If

14:43

nine out of ten businesses fail, then

14:45

that feels like why on earth would

14:48

I even try? Why would I try something

14:50

new? But the thing is that statistic

14:52

just isn't even close to true.

14:54

If you look at the data, what you find is that

14:57

about half of businesses think

14:59

survived, something like the first five

15:01

years. I wish I had the data right in front of me, but I

15:03

don't remember it exactly. But anyway, when

15:06

you look at and the government

15:08

research has done this. When you look at what actually happened

15:10

to those businesses that closed, what

15:12

you find is that a good bulk of them

15:14

did not close because of some catastrophic failure.

15:17

They closed because of some natural conclusion,

15:19

either because the business had succeeded

15:21

in doing whatever it was going to do, where the person

15:24

decided to retire, or they sold it or whatever

15:26

there was some natural reason in which it ended.

15:28

And the other ones, even if they

15:30

did close because of what we might call

15:32

a failure, What we

15:34

don't see in that data is that the

15:36

failure may have informed the next thing

15:38

that they did, and that was the success. It's

15:40

not reasonable to say that just because

15:42

something didn't work. that the person who

15:44

did it is a failure and will always

15:47

be a failure. Because when

15:49

I talk to and Jordan you do too, When

15:51

we talk to people who have had massive

15:53

successes, they have done that

15:55

on top of a pile of

15:57

failures. Yeah. Slack comes to mind.

15:59

Wasn't it like a video game company

16:01

that no one cared about basically

16:04

for years, like a decade? There's like endless

16:06

varieties of this in which the company

16:08

that you know actually came out of

16:10

some company that completely failed. And

16:12

that's wonderful. Can I tell you a quick story? It's

16:14

like one of my most memorable encounters

16:17

with an entrepreneur. Alright. So

16:19

before kids, I liked to listen

16:21

to podcasts in the shower. I don't

16:23

I don't do that so much anymore. What does that have to do with kids?

16:25

I know there's a test of the way why. Well,

16:28

because it was the kids who haven't burst in and

16:30

then they'll need something and then I won't be able to focus

16:32

too because I don't have as much time to shower as I

16:34

used to, like, My showers are extremely fast

16:36

right now. I can't make it through a Jordan harbinger

16:38

episode, and I wasn't taking hour long five. That's

16:41

not like, how many showers before, but for example,

16:43

out of January. But Yeah. You

16:45

know, I usually would try to take a nice leisurely ten minute

16:47

shower now. I mean, like, it's like a four minutes. Right? Like, how

16:49

fast can we get in and out of this thing? And then I got somebody

16:51

screaming. Yeah. And then I gotta get somebody breakfast.

16:53

Anyway, I was looking for a

16:56

speaker. I wanted it to do two things. I have

16:58

three things. I wanted it to be waterproof. I

17:00

wanted it to be bluetooth. I

17:02

wanted it to be wireless. because I wanted

17:04

to be able to just kind of beam the show

17:06

into a speaker in the shower and

17:09

not have the speaker break without running an extension

17:11

cord into the place where you take your bathing.

17:13

I'd like to survive my shower. Yeah.

17:15

And, anyway, I went out to Amazon

17:17

and I couldn't find anything.

17:19

from any brand that you've ever heard of

17:22

that had these three things. There

17:23

was only one speaker

17:24

on Amazon that did this and it was

17:27

it was brand called hype What the hell is

17:29

hype? You ever heard of hype? No. Nobody's

17:30

ever heard of hype. And I look at

17:33

the reviews and people

17:35

say, I've never heard of this company before,

17:38

but the speaker worked as advertised.

17:40

And if I had any questions, there

17:43

was an email address that came on a piece

17:45

of paper and I emailed it and a guy

17:47

named Sam responded. And I was like, well,

17:49

I've spent seventy dollars on more

17:51

questionable things. So I bought it

17:54

And the speaker shows up, and

17:56

it works as advertised. I had some question. I can't

17:58

remember some connectivity issue. So I emailed it

18:00

email address. And sure enough, like a day later,

18:02

this guy Sam responds. Sam says

18:05

to me, he's like, thanks for writing.

18:08

Here's what China said, and then like

18:10

a block of kind of broken English text.

18:12

that once I spent some time with it, did

18:14

answer my question. But now I'm thinking, okay,

18:16

what is hype? Who is Sam? What

18:18

is this? What did China say? What is he talking about?

18:20

He is a reseller or something. Right? seemed maybe,

18:23

I don't know, but I got very curious. So I

18:25

started battering Sam. Really, really good

18:27

at battering people. And I

18:29

said Sam, I gotta know what's going on. What

18:31

is this company? who are you? And

18:33

then I I started googling around. I found

18:35

that hype was connected to a company called

18:37

CNA Marketing in New Jersey. I emailed Sam.

18:39

I say, how is hype connected to CNA Marketing?

18:42

he sends you back a smiley face. No, I

18:44

like I gotta know. And so I'm sending this

18:46

guy multiple emails. Finally, he makes a time

18:48

to talk and then takes it back he puts me in

18:50

touch with a publicist who puts me in touch with a marketing

18:52

person who tells me that what I need to do

18:54

is, in like a week or two, show up at

18:56

this photography industry convention at

18:58

the Javits Center in Manhattan. I live in New York,

19:00

go to the Polaroid Stand and ask for a climb. That's

19:02

why took bar exam. So I'm familiar with this,

19:05

like, crazy, like, old event

19:07

area, event space. To the least welcoming

19:09

space in New York, and that's really saying something.

19:11

Mhmm. So I, you know, you gotta do that.

19:13

Right? So I showed up at the convention hall,

19:16

and I go to the polar withstand, then I asked for

19:18

a climb. Which high end? There's eight hundred

19:20

fans here. This is Manhattan. Unfortunately,

19:24

I find my kind. Yeah. My kind is this

19:26

guy with a, you know, wispy red beard and

19:28

he sits down and he's like talking in riddles

19:30

and, you know, he's like, every time that My

19:33

wife or daughter come home with a product, I say, you shouldn't

19:35

have bought that because I make that. And and, you know, it's

19:37

like, what are you talking about? Yeah. And I could not I just

19:39

could not understand what he was saying. So finally, can

19:41

I just come to your wherever

19:43

you work and see what's going on here? And

19:45

he says, okay. So like a week or two later,

19:47

I go out to New Jersey. and I meet Chaim and

19:49

I understand finally what's going on. So Chaim at

19:52

the time was running CNA marketing. This is whole reason

19:54

I'm telling you the story is because this is about learning from failure.

19:56

So Chaim started in the camera film industry,

19:58

like, you know, making camera film.

20:00

And he saw that eventually

20:02

there was gonna be an end to that industry. So

20:04

he got into digital

20:07

cameras. And then he saw, you know, this

20:09

is kind of difficult industry. He's got into

20:11

camera accessories. And then he saw, this

20:13

is difficult industry. And he's trying to figure

20:15

out what to do, how do I pivot, how do I this work.

20:17

I'm back in a bunch of failing industries right

20:19

now. And then he has

20:21

his realization. His realization comes because

20:24

of all his failures, which is that he has been making

20:26

these products and selling them on Amazon. And

20:28

he realizes that Amazon isn't just a great

20:31

place to sell products. Amazon

20:34

is a free massive

20:37

r and d facility. You can put something

20:39

on Amazon and instantly see how

20:41

people react to it. And even better, you can

20:43

go to other companies products and go

20:45

into their

20:46

comments and see what people

20:48

like and they don't like. Which means, that you

20:50

can go to, for example, a speaker

20:52

product made by Bose and

20:54

look down and see people saying, you know, I really

20:57

like this thing, but I wish that it was waterproof. Right.

20:59

Okay. And then so he would say, oh, why

21:01

don't we just make a version of that waterproof?

21:03

It will put it on, and then we'll see what

21:05

happens. So he assembles

21:08

this team. He walks me into this room.

21:10

Chaim is an orthodox Jew and he he don't

21:12

say. Yeah. Yeah. Try his case.

21:14

That wasn't clear. Right. I walk into this room.

21:16

It is just full of these orthodox Jewish

21:19

guys. He's, like, hired his network. He's at

21:21

the time. He said has one Italian guy. He

21:23

lets him work from home. Like, that's

21:26

sounds a little bit like they just don't want in there,

21:28

but that's fine. I'm

21:30

sure this was this was pretty pandemic. I'm sure

21:32

the guy was like, he felt very excited

21:34

that he had a rare work from home job. Anyway, so these

21:36

guys are all working from home and they all have these different

21:38

areas that they focus on. And so Sam

21:41

was working in the speakers in whatever department.

21:43

And so Sam's job is to, like, to identify these products,

21:46

find a way in which somebody might

21:48

want some upgraded or slightly different version

21:50

of it. Go to China, have somebody make it, slap

21:52

some random brand on it called hype, and

21:54

then put it on Amazon to see what happens. If people like

21:56

it, they make more of it. And if they don't, then they kill it. And

21:58

this is now how he's built

21:59

this business, and it is a massive, massive business.

22:02

I can't remember the size but it was growing at like

22:04

thirty percent a year when I talked to now, years later,

22:06

it is called DNA Global. He's got

22:09

offices around the world. He bought

22:11

Ritz camera. He bought Skyball.

22:13

Remember that thing? And you get you sit down in a

22:15

airplane where you buy, like, in afflatable

22:18

hot tubs from your airplane. That's exactly right.

22:20

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cai owns that now. Wow.

22:22

All off of learning from these failures. And

22:24

so the reason I love this story is because

22:26

It should inform you that, look, any single

22:28

time in which you're doing something and it does not

22:30

work out, you could look at it as this

22:33

was a terrible failure or you could look at it

22:35

as I have an advantage that other people don't.

22:37

Because I got to the front lines of where

22:39

this challenge is. And

22:40

therefore, I see this challenge in a way that other

22:42

people don't. and I can build what I learn

22:44

into whatever I do next and that gives me an

22:47

advantage over other people.

22:47

If

22:50

you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing

22:53

folks for the show, like I said, I'm friends with Jason.

22:55

We go way back. He put me in the New York

22:57

Times. Can't complain about that. I've got a great

22:59

network and I'm teaching you how to build your

23:01

network for free. It's one of most important

23:03

things I've ever done for my business and my personal

23:05

life for that matter. I met my wife that way. Most

23:08

of us have The course is free. It's at jordan

23:10

harbinger dot com slash course. This

23:12

course will make you a better networker, a better connector,

23:14

and more importantly, a better thinker. Again,

23:17

it's free at jordan harbinger dot com slash

23:19

course. And most of the guests you hear on the show

23:21

subscribe and contribute to that course.

23:23

So come join us. You'll be in smart company

23:25

where you belong.

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I really like this recent episode about

24:01

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24:03

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tomorrow. Now

25:39

back to Jason Pfeiffer.

25:43

I wish I knew this zoom

25:45

out used failure is data

25:48

in the same way. I mean, I'd heard that kind of thing

25:50

before, but it's, like, in the moment, you're, like, whatever. This still

25:52

sucks. This is kind of what it was like for

25:54

me transitioning from my old business, my old

25:56

podcast to my new show. It felt like such an epic

25:59

kick in the nuts. But once few

26:01

years had gone by, I realized that

26:03

all the cliches that people had thrown at me

26:05

in many ways were true. It was the

26:07

best thing that ever happened to me in terms of my

26:09

business because like all the previous knowledge

26:12

that I had, and I know we'll get to that in a little bit, but

26:14

all the skills that I had, all of these relationships

26:16

that I had actually made a lot more sense.

26:18

But instead of slowly pivoting which is

26:20

what I thought I wanted to do. It was actually

26:22

better to just rip the cord out of the wall

26:25

and throw the machine out of the window

26:27

and rebuild it because it was such a mess.

26:29

that a new iteration was better from

26:31

the ground up. It's like you don't remodel

26:34

a skyscraper that's before World War

26:36

two to go back to your Manhattan analogy. Like, you don't

26:39

rebuild that thing and then slap an elevator

26:41

on it. You just demolish it and build a new one.

26:43

It's got different materials. The elevators

26:45

are in the middle. You could put central air

26:47

in the thing. You'd of window units everywhere. That's

26:49

what I needed to do with my business.

26:51

But you kinda don't know to do that if

26:53

you don't know about these concepts

26:56

and about zooming out about realizing

26:58

that everything that you've done before is gonna play a

27:00

part in what you do in the future because

27:02

sometimes you can't really see that. With big

27:04

changes, you wrote that we go in stages. Stage

27:06

one is usually panic.

27:09

Tell me about margarine. expect

27:14

to expect I didn't expect that turn on the

27:16

the question. Yeah. Keeping out your tires. I appreciate

27:18

it. So okay.

27:20

Yes. You're right. So there are four stages to

27:23

panic will, I assume, talk about it. But the

27:25

first one is panic, which is what everybody

27:27

feels. Right? As soon as change happens, you

27:29

feel absolute panic and the reason you feel panic

27:31

is pretty reasonable. It's because you feel

27:33

like the thing that you knew is

27:36

gone. And then you start to extrapolate

27:39

because we wanna know what's coming next. So

27:41

we say, well, if I lost this thing, I experienced

27:43

changes, loss. Loss is so much easier to see

27:45

than gain. My experience changed in loss,

27:47

now I know what I've lost. And because I lost this thing,

27:49

I'm gonna lose that thing. Because I lost that thing, I'm not gonna

27:51

be as relevant anymore. And now I've got myself a

27:53

kind of spiraling problem. So

27:56

this brings us to what you shouldn't do

27:58

at that moment, which is margarine.

27:59

So thanks for bringing that up.

28:02

Mhmm. Okay. Here's a fun

28:04

fact about margarine. So The original

28:06

margarine is not what you know of

28:08

as margarine. The original margarine was

28:10

like a kind of it was beef tallow. It

28:12

was like a kind of weird concoction

28:15

that came from beef and its spread like butter.

28:17

And it came out of this challenge that

28:19

the French emperor Napoleon III in the

28:21

mid eighteen hundreds had made What he wanted

28:23

was a butter like substance that could travel easily

28:26

with his soldiers.

28:27

And in eighteen sixty nine, this chemist

28:29

in France

28:30

came up with this thing that he called Olio

28:32

Martrian and it did exactly that.

28:34

It was basically like a cheap transportable

28:37

source of protein for soldiers, which was

28:39

really helpful. And then it made its way across the Atlantic.

28:41

at the time, you know,

28:43

most people, you know, this is the

28:45

mid late 1800s. You know, most people

28:47

in America, they couldn't afford much

28:50

nutrition. I mean, they were living on stale

28:52

bread and anything with

28:54

protein was very expensive and

28:56

that included butter because butter one, it was

28:58

It was really expensive, but two, you couldn't store

29:00

it anywhere. So no refrigerators or any

29:02

No refrigerators. Right? So this is this is a pre

29:04

refrigeration era. So margarine comes

29:07

along. and it is cheap and

29:09

it stores easily. It is access

29:11

to many people who cannot afford butter. It is access

29:14

to some nutrients, you know, some fat

29:16

and some protein that they can put on their stale

29:18

bread. It's very, very useful.

29:20

And so, margarine takes off. And

29:22

this puts the butter industry

29:24

in just absolute panic. Right?

29:27

They have I found all these really funny

29:29

newspaper articles this way. This one

29:31

in eighteen seventy four was like

29:33

some declaration from the butter industry saying

29:35

that every measure must be taken to ensure, quote,

29:37

supremacy of the dairy in our

29:39

agriculture, and they start working

29:41

with local lawmakers to pass

29:44

these insane laws that

29:46

limit how people can access margarine.

29:49

So first, they tax the ever living hell out

29:51

of margarine. There's a congressional act

29:53

in eighteen eighty six that does this. But then the

29:55

big one States start passing these

29:57

laws mandating that margarine

29:59

be dyed

29:59

unappealing colors

30:01

like pink

30:02

margarine or black margarine.

30:04

Yeah. That is gross. That is gross. Who's gonna

30:06

buy that? And the whole reason for this was just to make

30:08

it seem unappealing because what butter wants to

30:10

do here is compete unfairly. It's to

30:12

compete unfairly. Right? Right? Which you can find

30:15

it's a tradition that is alive and well today

30:17

-- Exactly. -- just look to the halls of Congress.

30:19

So what I think is important to the reason

30:21

why I like the story is because it

30:23

shows you how the butter industry

30:26

in panicking did not even

30:28

attempt to try to think about how to

30:30

solve problems for people. They did

30:32

not think about how this change

30:34

could ultimately drive them to improve

30:37

their product in the way in which they serve people

30:39

and therefore expand the reach of their product

30:41

and said what they tried to do is they just try to

30:43

stop the change entirely, and that

30:45

never works out for you. So what happened as a result,

30:47

well, This crazy pink margarine thing

30:49

ended up in the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court

30:52

said that you cannot force margarine

30:54

to be dyed crazy colors But

30:57

what it did leave open was that margarine

30:59

could be stopped from being dyed yellow, so

31:01

margarine couldn't sell itself yellow

31:03

to compete with butter. So margarine

31:05

companies started selling their margarine pure

31:08

white and then they sold a little yellow

31:10

capsule along with it, which people

31:12

could mix into the margarine and then it would look like

31:14

butter and it turns out kids really

31:17

really loved that. So they started and stirring

31:19

the yellow into the margarine and

31:21

then a whole generation of people thought that

31:23

butter was this thing that shows up

31:25

white that you pour yellow into and

31:27

it wouldn't for like fifty something years,

31:29

margarine sales actually outpaced butter

31:31

sales and butter really, really struggle. Like,

31:33

oh, I want the kind that you mix yourself. I don't want

31:36

the kind that's already yellow by the other way.

31:38

Meanwhile, you're choosing margarine over. Exactly.

31:40

Oops. and then butter became the subject these health scares.

31:42

And anyway, the whole point of it is like, if you look back on this

31:44

now, you could have said, well, what could butter have done differently?

31:47

Well, they could have used Failure is data

31:49

here. They could have seen, well, butter sales are going down

31:51

and margarine sales are going up. Why? Because

31:53

margarine is serving need that we are not

31:55

serving? So how could we do that better? Is there

31:57

a way in which we can either reduce our manufacturing

31:59

Crisis? Can we get in on the development

32:02

of refrigeration? Because boy, that would have been

32:04

amazing. That was happening right around the same time.

32:06

Big margarine could have easily gotten in bed

32:08

with big refrigeration. There were all sorts of things

32:10

that

32:10

they could do and they didn't. And instead what they did is they

32:12

panicked and

32:12

they made stupid decision because when you panic, that's

32:14

what you do, you make stupid decisions. And as a

32:16

result, they harm themselves for about fifty years.

32:19

Big dairy is trying to do the

32:21

same thing with almond milk, milk,

32:23

alternative milk like you can't use the word

32:25

milk. And so that's gonna end up

32:27

with, I would imagine, predictable backfire

32:29

somehow. don't know how, but somehow gonna

32:31

blow up in their face. It absolutely will. It's

32:33

crazy how the same exact story is playing

32:35

out right now. And instead of thinking How can

32:38

I be more innovative? How can I

32:40

learn from the reason why people are leaving me?

32:42

Instead, they just try to stop people from

32:44

leaving them. It doesn't work that way. We saw

32:46

that with spot or not Spotify Napster

32:48

in music. I see it now. I've

32:50

got little kids who talk about this all the time.

32:52

Panic about kids and screens

32:54

and I also was slash ham

32:56

worried about that. But then when I read your book and it's like,

32:58

well, yeah, they did that with the radio. And it's

33:01

like, they were worried about kids listening to

33:03

the radio How quaint that sounds

33:05

these days? Forget about the internet

33:07

with access to twenty four seven, like, hardcore

33:10

pornography that we have now. wow, the kids

33:12

might listen to music a lot. And of course, original

33:14

radio, it's all live musicians

33:17

playing in studio. So don't let your kids

33:19

near that string quartet. Everyone

33:21

knows after the violin concerto, the next step

33:23

is intravenous heroin. Like, what a weird

33:25

thing to worry about? My kid

33:28

does become a freaking zombie when he's watching

33:30

something on the iPad, but the idea that

33:32

the radio would corrupt children

33:34

or that and I remember Ryan

33:36

holiday saying something like The stoics

33:39

or at least early philosophers maybe

33:41

in Greece were worried that reading was

33:43

gonna cause people to not be able to memorize

33:45

everything anymore, so books are

33:48

a terrible idea. Now it's if nobody

33:50

alive is saying books are bad for you,

33:52

not one person. That's right. So that that is a controversial

33:55

reading of I think Aristotle,

33:57

the point he was making was the difference between

34:00

feeling like you know

34:02

something for sure and

34:04

that you just have a kind of thin

34:06

understanding of it because you read

34:08

it I don't know. Whatever. I'm not Greek historian.

34:10

But he's probably right about that, but I don't think he's,

34:12

like, by away. So what I mean is no more books.

34:14

No. Right. It was more like understand what

34:16

you're reading. I think was this point. Right? There

34:18

was in the late eighteen hundreds and mid mid to

34:20

late eighteen hundreds actually whole thing

34:22

about how books were terrible. Novels

34:25

were considered to be a terrible

34:27

influence on particularly

34:30

women and children And there was like

34:32

Thomas Jefferson. In a

34:34

letter in eighteen eighteen, he wrote that books

34:36

are poison that infects the mind.

34:38

There are all these concerns that people were gonna be addicted

34:41

to reading. They were addicted to radio. There

34:43

was a national moral crisis over Teddy bears

34:45

in nineteen o seven. There are all these

34:47

things where new things come out and

34:49

people start engaging with them and it

34:51

changes the way in which we appear

34:54

to be behaving. And therefore,

34:57

we read it as some kind of

34:59

foundational, very dangerous

35:01

change to our lives. And it's just never

35:03

proven to be the case. I've

35:06

there are, like, two stories that I wanna tell I'll see

35:08

if I can remember to to do both. One is,

35:10

on this point about, like, witnessing change

35:12

in the way in which new technology can alter us,

35:14

This is woman named Sherry Turkle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

35:17

Mhmm. So Sherry Turkle writes

35:19

books about how technology

35:21

is going to inhibit our ability to

35:24

have meaning full conversations with people and it's tearing

35:26

us apart and I'm not a big fan of her work.

35:28

It was just be frank. A while ago,

35:30

years and years ago, She wrote this piece of The New York

35:32

Times that drove me insane in which she

35:35

was explaining how having

35:37

these phones in your pockets lead

35:39

you to live what you called the documented life

35:41

in which you're no longer experiencing life instead

35:44

rather what you're doing is you're simply going around documenting

35:46

that life, which is I guess an interesting observation,

35:49

but I don't think is very true once you start

35:51

to think about why people are doing things. So, anyway, she describes

35:53

walking around LA with a ziz on

35:55

sorry, the comedian. Oh, yeah. She writes

35:57

that as she's doing this, people start

35:59

coming up

35:59

to a z's. They start demanding

36:02

photographs with him. Very important, she uses the word

36:04

demand in there. She says they don't ask for an

36:06

autograph. They demand a photo. So she says, you

36:08

know, there's value judgment there. And

36:09

a z's, instead

36:11

of just taking a photo with them, tries

36:13

to engage them in conversation. He

36:16

asks them about their tastes in music

36:18

or what they like about his formances

36:21

or his sitcoms or whatever. And she

36:23

describes here his fans as being, you know,

36:26

mollified but not happy. And then they walk away

36:28

seem a little unsatisfied. And to her,

36:31

this is evidence of a

36:33

plague, a change driven, technology

36:36

driven plague. in which because

36:38

people want the photo

36:40

and because they are so used

36:42

to now just documenting things, they don't seem

36:44

to have the ability to have a human a human interaction.

36:47

But I really challenge that. And

36:49

the reason I do is because I think that

36:51

Sherry and Aziz have not thought through

36:54

what the interaction with a z's

36:56

was four from the perspective of somebody

36:58

who has come up to him. The person who has come up

37:00

to a z's. Well, first of all, they don't

37:03

think that disease wants to spend a lot

37:05

of time talking to them. And so if he does,

37:07

they're gonna be probably nervous that

37:09

what they're gonna say is not gonna feel

37:12

interesting to a disease and also it's pretty

37:14

weird when a celebrity is like, oh, Thanks

37:16

for liking my work. Tell me very specifically

37:18

what you like about my work. That's uncomfortable. I

37:20

wouldn't know how to answer that question. I do that when people

37:22

write to me and often they're like, oh, well

37:24

now that you're asking, or some people are like, oh,

37:26

I can if it happens in real time -- Yeah.

37:28

-- it's funny because some people are like the latest one about

37:30

this was great, but there's so many favorites And other

37:32

people who are just lying to you because they want

37:35

that selfie, they're like, oh, all

37:37

of them are great, or they're like, oh, mine. The one

37:39

you did with Kobe Bryant four

37:41

years ago. Oh, it was so good. And it's like,

37:44

you literally only know that one thing that

37:46

you saw on a homepage or something. Come on.

37:48

god. I'm so glad I'm not a Jordan harbinger

37:50

fan coming up to you asking for a selfie that No.

37:52

I love that. I just don't like when people

37:54

lie about something and they're like, wanna pitch a

37:56

guest to you. I'm a huge fan of your show. I'm like, what's your favorite

37:58

episode? The latest one. That's some

38:00

lazy people. Right? The latest one. I'm like,

38:03

right now, you didn't make Right. Well, when people are pitching,

38:05

I mean, this, you know, as the editor in chief of magazine,

38:07

I know very very well that when people are pitching me

38:09

and they say, they love my work the very beginning,

38:11

ninety nine percent of the time, that is definitely

38:14

not true. They don't know my work at all. They just want

38:16

me to write about them. Anyway, here's the thing about

38:18

this thing with disease. I think that Sherry has misunderstood

38:20

the situation here. People who

38:23

are coming up to him are very interested in personal

38:25

connection. They're just not interested in personal connection

38:27

with a z's. They have a transactional relationship

38:29

with disease. He makes something and they consume

38:31

it. And they're very happy with that relationship. And

38:34

they don't know what else to do with that relationship.

38:36

So when they go and they see him, What

38:38

they don't want is an hour long conversation.

38:40

What they do want is a photo of themselves

38:42

with a z so that they can share with their friends who

38:45

they do have actual relationships with.

38:47

there's value to that. Don't devalue that.

38:49

This is a thing that I think we just we really need to

38:51

keep in mind whenever we see changes that

38:53

are driven by new technologies or really anything else.

38:56

Can people have bad experiences? Yes,

38:58

of course. Can people overdo it? Can they

39:01

be on social media too much into the detriment of

39:03

other things and we're like, yes, of course, on an individual Crisis,

39:05

Absolutely. But let's not say that

39:07

just because something

39:08

looks different, it is different.

39:10

Let's not say that just because it appears as if

39:12

somebody is doing something that I find unfamiliar

39:14

Therefore, that person must be

39:16

broken in some way that some fundamental

39:18

part of their humanness must not exist

39:21

anymore. That just doesn't track because

39:23

we have gone through history where, like you said, people

39:25

who have been concerned about the radio being too addictive

39:27

and novels being too addictive and Teddy bears

39:29

destroying girls And over and over and over

39:32

again, there's endless examples of the potatoes. Right?

39:34

That wasn't potatoes, one of the examples, which

39:36

makes no sense to me at all? Yes. There's actually quite

39:38

a lot of foods that people were extremely concerned

39:40

about. Some of them actually, there's like good reason

39:42

for that because tomatoes, for example, like

39:44

you go back and I think people call them the devil's apple,

39:46

but was good reason for that because the tomato

39:49

that we know has, like, been cultivated over hundreds

39:51

of years. Like, back then, it was, like, small and bitter and

39:53

not, you know, it's like a totally different fruit. But, yes,

39:55

like, There are endless endless versions

39:57

of the car. People called it the devil wagon.

39:59

People

39:59

like to throw devil around a lot. I read it in your book

40:02

that people would see a car driving down the street

40:04

and throw rocks at it and be like, get a horse

40:06

-- which is hilarious because it sounds fake.

40:08

They would literally yell, get a

40:10

horse at people when they drove down the street. Yes.

40:12

It's hilarious. Right? And there's good reason for that.

40:14

Actually, a good lesson that comes out of that story, which we're gonna

40:16

type. But, like, let's not forget that

40:19

our fundamental humanness can

40:21

take different expressions in different

40:23

generations depending on what happens to available

40:25

to us. I talked to this guy, Lee Rainey. He's the head of

40:27

the Pew's center for Internet research or something. I'm sure

40:30

I have that a little bit wrong. But anyway, he made this

40:32

really interesting point to me, which was he said,

40:34

look, in the past, a

40:36

sign of intelligence was the ability

40:39

to quickly retain

40:41

and recall information. Today,

40:44

a sign of intelligence, is the ability

40:46

to quickly find and process

40:48

information. Is one better and

40:50

one worse? No. They're just different.

40:53

And that's okay. It's okay for things to be

40:55

different because we are adapting to our environments,

40:57

into our new needs, and not everything is always

41:00

gonna look the same. It reminds me of when my

41:02

teachers used to say, you have to memorize

41:04

this because you're not gonna walk around with a calculator

41:07

in your pocket. And I thought to myself, Probably

41:09

I won't need to walk around with a calculator into

41:11

my pocket because I'm gonna have one of these computers

41:14

doing whatever I'm doing in my job because I love

41:16

computers and I'm thirteen. Now, well, jokes

41:18

on you, missus Orva, because every human

41:21

that you know walks around with a calculator in

41:23

their pocket and a video saying an email

41:25

and everything else for better for us in their

41:27

pocket. And if you don't memorize your multiplication

41:29

tables, it pretty much doesn't matter.

41:31

And oh, you need to know how to write things quickly

41:34

by hand because nope, the last time I wrote something

41:36

by hand, was probably like on a piece of

41:38

wood that I was about to cut or something

41:40

like that. I can't even remember the last

41:42

time I wrote something by hand

41:44

that was longer than two words. And

41:47

that's fine because the thing is

41:49

You have tools that can do that so you can

41:51

learn other skills. Right?

41:53

It's not like you lost something that we all

41:55

needed. You lost something that people needed

41:57

at a particular time. And instead, you

41:59

are devoting your brain space to developing other

42:01

skills that are useful in your time. And that's a

42:04

good thing. I gotta tell you, man, I earned

42:06

the ire of many of my mother's friends

42:08

on Facebook. This is a few years ago.

42:10

Sorry, mom. Somebody had posted

42:12

something like kids can't even

42:14

write in cursive anymore. It's ridiculous

42:17

and they do this and that and they have to print

42:19

and it's like it's so pathetic I used

42:21

to be. and my mom would liked it or shared

42:23

it. And I went in the comments, of course,

42:26

like a total a whole sun would do. And I

42:28

go, how many of you can type faster than a hundred

42:30

words per minute? every kid you're

42:32

complaining about can do at

42:34

least that every kid that you're

42:36

whining about who can't write in cursive. Now

42:39

how often do you write in cursive at work?

42:41

versus how often do you use the computer? Y'all

42:43

are sitting there using two fingers

42:45

to type and the kids are done with the first

42:47

page by the time you're done the first paragraph or

42:49

even the first couple of sentences. What's more

42:51

useful? And it was just like meltdown.

42:55

Who's kid is this? shut your mouth,

42:57

your little tour kind of replies. And just

42:59

thought, like, this is what we're looking at

43:01

in real time is this failure to adapt,

43:03

which is understandable. I'm gonna be that way

43:05

too. but do not see it

43:07

and then complain about it is somehow

43:09

just absolutely peak boomer

43:11

in many ways. or a peak, old

43:13

person in any generation, if you guys I guess you'd

43:15

say. It's peak every generation. So let me tell

43:18

you, we were talking about music earlier.

43:20

Let me tell you, like, the other music story that I wanna

43:22

tell you because I think least there's some good advice for anybody

43:24

who feels stuck in this kind of thing. It's

43:26

fun to rag on these folks but, like, it's also

43:29

important to realize that we will become these folks. And

43:31

so let's arm ourselves with some So let's be aware

43:33

of it and not and go, oh, I'm the old one

43:35

and they're doing the right thing and maybe I see where the

43:37

pie is going, and then I'm the person who's seventy you

43:39

can actually type. Yeah. Right. So,

43:41

turn to the Century, the photograph. Brand

43:43

new innovation. The very first record

43:45

player. Consider how

43:47

completely insanely revolutionary

43:49

this was. For

43:50

all of human history, before the photograph,

43:53

if you wanted to listen to music, there was only one way

43:55

to do it. and that

43:55

was to be in front of a human being

43:57

who is playing an instrument. So another

43:59

way, how are you

44:00

gonna listen to music? And

44:01

then, this machine comes along and can do

44:03

it for you. You can play music. unbelievable. Consumers

44:06

didn't believe it at first. Like, they literally, they had to be

44:08

shown. Like, no, there's not a person behind

44:10

the wall playing music. Like, they had to be shown. And

44:12

then once they believed it, they loved it, they brought

44:15

it home. You know

44:15

who hated this? Yeah. I don't know musicians.

44:17

Yep. Musicians hated it.

44:20

hated it because they saw themselves being replaced.

44:22

Here that, you know, they see this new technology doing

44:25

thing that they do, and they see change,

44:27

and they equate change with loss. And

44:30

they say, we have stopped this. Right?

44:32

They pull a margarine. And the leader

44:34

of resistance was this guy named John Phillips

44:36

Susan. Jaffel Tusa, you may not know his name, but

44:38

you know his music because it's still around today. All the

44:40

military marches, jaffel

44:43

Tusa, you know why we know who he is? because we have recordings

44:45

of the music. Bingo. That's

44:48

exactly right. So John Phillips

44:50

News, he, at the time, was

44:52

the leader of the resistance against recorded

44:54

music. He wrote this amazing piece

44:57

like Google it because it is hilarious.

44:59

It's called the menace of mechanical music it ran

45:01

in Appleton's magazine in nineteen o six and

45:03

it contains all of these wonderful

45:05

arguments against recorded music

45:07

and my favorite goes like this.

45:10

He says, When you bring recorded

45:12

music into the home, it will be

45:14

the end of all forms of live performance

45:16

in the home. Because why would anybody perform music in

45:18

the home when now there's a machine that can do it for So

45:20

now because we're gonna extrapolate loss. Remember,

45:22

I talked about that earlier. Right? Like, you see changes lost

45:24

and you extrapolate the loss. So what's next? Well,

45:26

he says, because people are no longer performing

45:29

music at home, Mothers will no longer

45:31

sing to their children. Quite the jump. Yeah. Quite

45:33

the jump. Why would they do that when a machine

45:35

could do it? Here's

45:36

another jump. Because children grew up

45:38

imitating their mothers the children will

45:40

grow up to imitate the machines, and thus

45:42

we will raise a generation of machine babies.

45:45

That was his argument. Like a real thing that

45:47

people took seriously. I

45:48

feel like it's fun to laugh at John

45:50

Phillips' Souset for this, but also I feel like what

45:52

he's doing is pretty relatable. It is relatable.

45:55

It's very human. It's very human. You

45:57

have something and it works for you.

45:59

And then you see

45:59

some change come along and you feel like

46:02

this change is existential. It

46:04

is going to outmod you. So

46:06

he tried to stop it. And it's

46:08

worth asking ourselves in this moment.

46:11

Three

46:11

simple questions. Number

46:12

one,

46:13

what is this new thing that's

46:15

happening?

46:16

Number two, what new habit

46:18

or skill are we learning as a result?

46:20

And

46:20

then number three, how can that be put to good use?

46:23

Because If you do that,

46:25

it just helps you reframe any

46:27

moment of change

46:28

as let's focus on the game. Is

46:30

there some kind of game that we can extrapolate.

46:32

Maybe it's not as easy to see as the loss,

46:34

but is it there? And what would

46:36

it look like? Because if you ran that scenario

46:39

with John Phillips, Susan, what you would see as,

46:41

well, okay, what new thing are people doing? Well, what

46:43

they're doing is they're now listening

46:45

to music on these machines whenever they want.

46:47

What new habits skill that we're learning as a

46:49

result. We're learning that we have Tomorrow. Consumers

46:51

have a lot more control over the music that

46:53

they listen to. And therefore, also have

46:55

access to a lot more music because

46:58

before the only music that they could get was whoever

47:00

happened to be able to travel to their town and perform

47:02

for them. How could that be put to good use?

47:04

Well, come on guys, come on John Phillips. He's

47:06

like, This means that you could record

47:08

something yourself and you

47:10

could sell it and now people

47:13

can listen to and

47:14

enjoy your music and you can monetize

47:16

that in ways that are much more scalable

47:18

than what you're doing now because you're coming from a world

47:21

in which the only thing that you do is perform

47:23

for people that you can get in front of. And that means

47:25

you have a limited number of people that you can get front of. But if

47:27

you can

47:27

change that dynamic, then man,

47:29

oh man,

47:30

suddenly your economic ability

47:32

skyrockets as it turns out John Phillips, Susan,

47:35

was protecting a system that limited

47:37

his own economic ability. And the reason he

47:39

was doing that was because he was panicking because of

47:41

change. And once he figured it out,

47:43

he changed his tune. is not meant to be

47:45

upon, but there it is. Yes. I see what you did there.

47:47

You are a dad indeed. There it is. I'm I'm nailing

47:49

it. I got all the dad jokes. And he

47:52

started to record himself and he started

47:54

to perform on radio and he changed. And

47:56

this is something we all need to be mindful of. There

47:58

is gain and change and

47:59

we need to run ourselves these things that can just

48:02

help us focus on

48:02

it. This

48:05

is the Jordan harbinger show with our guest

48:08

Jason Pfeiffer. We'll be right back.

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Pfeiffer.

50:23

You're not really just cherry picking the examples here.

50:25

movie theaters were like VHS is gonna

50:27

ruin everything. Meanwhile, people just wanted to

50:29

own huge collections of movies. And those

50:32

are movie buffs, and it would still go

50:34

see a rerelease of a movie that

50:36

they owned in a theater because

50:38

it meant so much to them. It's like they hadn't seen

50:40

it since it was last in theaters, they probably watch

50:42

it hundred times in their VCR. So instead

50:44

it becomes a new revenue source for the studios,

50:46

streaming music and movies, Metallica, everybody

50:48

was panicking, oh god, they're stealing from

50:50

us. And then bands that you'd

50:52

never heard of became super

50:55

popular and famous in existing bands that were

50:57

already super popular in fame has started to sell way

50:59

more stuff, have way more huge audiences.

51:01

Their shows started to sell out no matter what

51:03

all the time. And It made

51:05

both industries better

51:07

all the time. And it just seems obvious, but

51:09

I know we

51:09

all do this. Right? If if something happened to podcasting

51:11

and they're like, you gotta do this in the metaverse. I'll be like, this

51:13

is gonna ruin podcast instead being

51:15

like, well, now I could do all this metaverse

51:18

stuff with my podcast. I would initially

51:20

probably panic and look Well, hopefully,

51:23

I'd be smart enough to look and see what other people are doing

51:25

with it. But I think my initial thought would be,

51:27

uh-oh, this is the beginning of the end. because the

51:29

future is coming for us. Right? It's not optional.

51:31

You just you gotta get there first. You gotta

51:33

adapt. You gotta thrive. But at first,

51:36

maybe you kind of your instinct is to go,

51:38

oh, crap. Yeah. Sucks. And so one of the

51:40

things that you can do during those times is that

51:42

you can really focus in on

51:44

what is the thing about you that does

51:46

not change. when

51:47

I was hearing you go through that example with

51:49

the better first thing. Right? Like, I can see why you would panic

51:51

about that. Right? Because you have built

51:53

a great business in a particular medium

51:56

with a particular consumption habit. People

51:58

are listening to you in a very specific way.

52:00

When and if that changes, that's

52:02

gonna feel really, really scary. And

52:04

so what you're gonna need to do and

52:06

maybe you do some version of this already, but what you're

52:08

gonna need to do is start to

52:10

separate for yourself the difference

52:12

between what you do, what is the

52:14

output of your work, and, like,

52:17

what is the core thing about you

52:19

that has value. Right? So some people just call

52:21

it your y. There's a difference between your what

52:23

and your y because I think

52:25

we all identify far too

52:28

closely with the thing that

52:30

we produce, with the way in

52:32

which we work. When I was just starting

52:34

out, I started out as a newspaper reporter,

52:37

and tell you, man, I identified as a newspaper

52:39

reporter. Like, people would they come up to me at a party and

52:41

they would say, you know, what do you do? And I'd say, I have a newspaper

52:43

report. It was my identity. And then, like, a year

52:45

or two in when I discovered that working in newspapers.

52:48

Suck. Very unstable industry.

52:51

Hours are terrible. And I didn't really wanna be in

52:53

newspapers anymore. But it was one of the things that held me

52:55

back was like, well, what am I? if

52:57

I'm not working at a newspaper because

52:59

I think of myself as a newspaper reporter.

53:01

I eventually I made it I made my way to magazines

53:03

and then the magazines I made the same mistake.

53:05

I was like, I'm a magazine editor, and then there were the many

53:07

times where I was like, maybe shouldn't be a magazine editor,

53:09

but I don't know what to and I think myself as a magazine

53:11

editor. And anyway, Then I started to

53:13

talk to entrepreneurs and I discovered that they have this

53:15

completely different way of talking about

53:17

themselves and of understanding themselves.

53:20

because what entrepreneurs do

53:21

is they define what

53:24

they do in

53:25

this very specific way

53:28

in which they have a clarity on what

53:30

can't change. I was talking to the CEO

53:32

of a company called Foodsters. They started

53:34

by making baking mixes. I've never heard of them, but

53:36

it's not my industry. So there's maybe not surprise there.

53:38

You've heard of one of their co founders, which is Sarah Michelle

53:40

Geller, Buffi. Oh, yeah. Sure have.

53:42

Yes. This would be Buffi, the vampire sire. Yeah.

53:44

Food stirs, you can find it at Whole Foods and

53:46

whatever. They make baking mixes. They started by making baking

53:49

mixes. This is pretty successful. And then they spent

53:51

like a year or so planning for this major change

53:53

of the business COVID came along and we completely

53:56

disrupted it, whatever the details don't really matter.

53:58

But anyway, I was talking to Greg

53:59

CEO and I asked him, was it a big bummer

54:02

to have to make this big change like you've been planning for

54:04

whole big roll out of this new definition

54:06

of brand. And he said to me, you know, it's not

54:08

because you gotta go back to, like, why do you start

54:10

a business to begin with? And our mission

54:13

is to bring joy to people with upgraded

54:15

sweet baked goods or something like that. And

54:17

he just tossed it off, but afterwards I was like, man,

54:20

that's really powerful. Like, what you have

54:22

is an articulation of something that

54:24

you do that isn't tied to the product that

54:26

you make. We bring joy to people with sweet baked

54:28

goods. We've been joy to people. Okay.

54:30

You can do that. It doesn't matter if your product category

54:33

changes. It doesn't matter if people don't want baking mixes

54:35

anymore. You can find some way to do it. I realize I

54:37

need like a version of that for my so went through this.

54:39

It came up with this little exercise. You wanna run

54:41

through it? Can

54:42

I ask you some questions? I kinda wanna go through

54:44

it because I love practicals, but also I'm like,

54:46

maybe I do it myself for my own thing.

54:49

Alright. So here it is. We're gonna run the same scenario

54:51

three times. Somebody comes up to you at party

54:53

and they ask what you do. What's the first thing that you're

54:55

gonna talk about? I'll tell you what it is. You're gonna talk

54:57

about your tasks So I would have said,

54:59

I'm a newspaper reporter, which means that I go out,

55:02

I find interesting things, and I write stories,

55:04

and I put them in the newspaper. What would you say?

55:06

Well, yeah, if I say I'm a podcaster, that's

55:08

a great way to end the conversation generally.

55:11

So I usually would like to say

55:13

something more grandiars like broadcaster because

55:15

then at least they kind of think maybe you're not

55:17

just a loser who lives in your mother's basement or

55:19

that you just want them to download your podcast -- Right. --

55:21

which is what I always feel like every time I tell somebody,

55:24

I have a podcast. We have eight listeners pretty soon

55:26

though, nine. Oh, great. Don't forget

55:28

to review me on iTunes. Yeah. Okay. So

55:30

now that we've done that -- Right. -- podcaster. We're

55:32

gonna do this again. Somebody comes up to

55:34

a party and they ask what you do. Can't talk

55:36

about your tasks. So anything that you would have thought

55:39

to say previous time, put it on

55:41

a table away from you, can't do it. So

55:43

I can't say like I interview people. You're gonna

55:45

talk about your skills. Okay. I'm

55:47

all ears. I would have said, I

55:49

am very good at talking

55:51

with people, finding useful information,

55:54

and then processing that information in a way

55:56

that's useful for others. That's what it wouldn't say.

55:58

for my job. No. That would have been what I said for my

56:00

newspaper job. But maybe it's too true for you because

56:02

I'll just I could feel like that's very similar

56:04

to what I -- Yeah. -- do. So he would say, if somebody

56:06

said, what do you do? And you can't talk about your tasks,

56:08

you tell them what? I make brilliant wisdom

56:11

available to others. something like

56:13

that. That's great. I like that. Okay. So

56:15

now we're gonna do it one more time. Somebody

56:17

comes up to your party and asks what you do. Can't

56:19

talk about your tasks. Can't talk about your skills.

56:21

At this point, what are you gonna talk about? I'll tell you.

56:23

Oh gosh. What you're gonna talk about is

56:25

your core. The

56:26

thing that is so deep inside of you,

56:28

that it drove you to develop the skills

56:31

that enable you to do the task.

56:33

and my suggestion is that this

56:35

be a very short

56:37

sentence. A short sentence that doesn't

56:40

really have anything to do

56:43

with anything that could change

56:45

about your life. So

56:47

I'll give you my example, and you don't have

56:49

to have one right now. because this

56:51

takes time to think through. But

56:53

the answer that I came to for myself is,

56:55

I tell stories in my own voice.

56:58

And the reason I love that phrase is

57:00

because it has two components to it. I tell

57:02

stories, not magazine stories, not newspaper

57:05

stories, not podcast stories, not books, not

57:07

standing on a stage. that liberates

57:09

me from doing any one

57:11

kind of thing because if

57:13

after we are done talking, I

57:16

check my email. An entrepreneur magazine

57:18

has sent me a note saying,

57:19

appreciate your service. We now hate

57:21

you and we would like you to go away, which I I

57:24

hope doesn't happen, but it doesn't

57:26

take away my identity because

57:27

my identity is I tell stories and I

57:29

can do that in any way. And then in

57:31

my own voice, I am setting the terms

57:34

for my work. This is how I want to do

57:36

it. I'm not telling somebody else's stories. I'm not

57:38

showing up and carrying the ball for somebody.

57:41

I've reached a level of my career in which I tell

57:43

stories in my own voice. Now that is

57:45

a thing that does not change in

57:47

a world of change. And when

57:49

you have that, when you can define

57:52

the thing about you, that will

57:54

remain true regardless

57:57

of what changes in your life. At

57:59

that point,

58:00

you have a sense of stability. You

58:02

understand what it is that you bring

58:04

to other people and bring to the world. And therefore,

58:06

you are less likely to cling

58:09

deeply to everything that

58:11

could change. I love this because

58:13

I resisted doing a live show from

58:16

stage for years and my network was

58:18

like, come on man, And then Hyundai

58:20

was gracious enough to be like, we will

58:22

give you a pile of cash that will make this

58:24

worthwhile so that you're not just taking out a bunch

58:26

of risk, which is what it was like before.

58:28

And, you know, Kyle's cash really home. They

58:30

do. And I was I told Ryan Holiday that

58:32

he'd be a great fit for the show, and I knew he would

58:34

show up because he's my friend and wouldn't bail at the

58:36

last minute and leave me, like, chewing my nails

58:38

off. And I did it, and I went,

58:41

wow, that was a lot of fun. All

58:43

the stress was self inflicted. Every ounce

58:45

of it and I would love to do it

58:47

again. And the reason is, to your point,

58:49

I need to polish this, but the

58:51

reason is because I am not a podcast

58:53

or I make space for other people to

58:55

to deliver wisdom to the audience. And

58:57

that could be on a stage. It

58:59

could be recorded environment. It could

59:01

be on live radio. was shocked that I

59:03

didn't realize this because I used to do live

59:05

radio, and I used to do interviews

59:08

that were in different formats. in different

59:10

ways and yet I can't imagine

59:12

not podcasting because that's the way that I do things

59:14

now. But it's really obvious that

59:17

what I do is not podcasting Or

59:19

what I can do is not just podcasting, that

59:22

I just have to make that space and have that conversation,

59:24

and it really doesn't matter if the Internet

59:27

is involved or squad

59:29

cast and prerecorded this and that and the other

59:31

thing, none of that is the core

59:33

of what I'm doing or why I'm doing it. I

59:35

was talking to Malcolm Gladwell. Your story

59:37

reminded me of this little anecdote. I was talking about

59:39

I'm Gladwell a great name drop, by the way, well done.

59:41

When you've got them, drop them. Right? Yep. So I was talking

59:44

about Gladwell, and I now I've said it, like, four

59:46

times. So I was talking about Gladwell. And and

59:50

was interviewing him for the magazine. I was very

59:52

Crisis, like, how does he figure

59:54

out what Malcolm Gliedwell project is? Mhmm.

59:56

Because everything that he does feels so distinctly him.

59:58

It does. Yeah. And I said,

59:59

like, is there a filter that you use to

1:00:01

understand what it is that you should

1:00:04

do? And he says, you know, to the best of my ability,

1:00:06

I try not to do that. because

1:00:08

and then this is what he said and this is

1:00:10

what I think you should keep in mind for those

1:00:12

next opportunities and everybody else should keep in mind for

1:00:14

theirs, self conceptions are powerfully limiting.

1:00:17

As soon as he said it, I wrote it down, I stuck it on my wall.

1:00:19

Self perceptions are powerfully limiting,

1:00:21

which is like, if you have an idea of what

1:00:23

you are, If you have really strong

1:00:26

self conception,

1:00:27

well, then you will turn down

1:00:30

all other opportunities to explore. You

1:00:32

will say, I do this one thing. Oh, yeah.

1:00:34

And the most dangerous

1:00:36

thing that we can do, if we are not,

1:00:38

you know, ninety five years old

1:00:40

and have nothing else to accomplish. The

1:00:42

most dangerous thing that we can do is

1:00:45

define ourselves too narrowly. That's what

1:00:47

you had done for a moment. you broke out of it, but you

1:00:49

were like, I'm a podcaster for sure. I have a self conception.

1:00:51

I'm a podcaster. And therefore, sitting on a

1:00:53

stage and talking to people live, that doesn't fit into

1:00:55

my self conception. That's something else. But

1:00:58

look how powerfully limiting that was because you

1:01:00

did it and you discovered, oh my gosh,

1:01:02

this fits into my self conception because my self

1:01:04

conception isn't a podcaster. My self deception

1:01:06

is, I'm a communicator. And that

1:01:08

allows me to do all sorts of things.

1:01:11

And now that you know it, Sky's a limit.

1:01:13

Sure. I mean, look, it's not like I've never

1:01:15

done a speaking gig or trained in a workshop.

1:01:17

But I looked at those as kind of different,

1:01:19

almost like side muscles -- Mhmm. -- not

1:01:22

as some natural, very natural

1:01:24

extension of the core of what I do. And

1:01:26

don't get me wrong. I love podcasting and the community

1:01:28

and all the things with it, but if it evaporated

1:01:31

tomorrow, I wouldn't be completely

1:01:33

up Shits Creek without a paddle. I would just

1:01:35

go back to whatever the new version of radio

1:01:38

is. because that's why I'm in podcasting

1:01:40

also. Right? Radio wouldn't put me on

1:01:42

so I put myself on and then I ended up on the radio

1:01:44

and I loved podcasting even more because I was

1:01:46

my own boss and here we are. And

1:01:48

to your point about identity, and you write about

1:01:51

this in the book, and I think this is so well said,

1:01:53

change seems scary and

1:01:55

all encompassing. And if change happens

1:01:57

to us, which it always does, we

1:01:59

worry that we will be changed

1:02:02

in an all encompassing and permanent way.

1:02:04

And if we change in an all encompassing

1:02:06

and permanent way, then who are we

1:02:08

anymore? I always bring back

1:02:10

this sort of traumatic business split. But when,

1:02:13

man, the loss of identity was probably one

1:02:15

of the scariest parts of whole transition because it was

1:02:17

like, I am this podcaster that

1:02:19

does this subject matter and this is the show

1:02:21

in the name of the show is associated with me,

1:02:24

and I am the face of the brand. So

1:02:26

who am I anymore now that that's gone?

1:02:28

Nobody. A big fat nobody

1:02:30

with nothing to show for himself, and I

1:02:32

felt so strongly and so immediately. But

1:02:34

if I'd had any semblance of all of this

1:02:37

or realized that what was happening without

1:02:39

just twenty twenty hindsight making it really clear.

1:02:41

I think the whole thing would have been a hell of a lot easier

1:02:43

for me. Well, I would realize the following. I

1:02:45

can ask myself these questions and this is a

1:02:47

great place to sort of wind things down. What is the first

1:02:49

step if we face a big change and we find

1:02:51

ourselves in that panic that I was in?

1:02:54

One, what did I overcome? Two,

1:02:57

what skill set did I have then that I

1:02:59

still have now? I didn't even think to ask

1:03:01

myself that So of course, I think that

1:03:03

I'm starting over when? What was me?

1:03:05

And skills are not the actions you took. It's

1:03:08

not I'm a dating show guy or a

1:03:10

movie reviewer. The skill is actually

1:03:12

what you could do that enables

1:03:14

you to do your job. So if you're a

1:03:16

movie reviewer, it's not writing. but

1:03:18

pattern matching or marketing or humor

1:03:21

or translating visual concepts

1:03:23

into the written word, whatever it is. And then

1:03:25

finally, what do I know now that I did not

1:03:28

know then? And that was probably one of the largest

1:03:30

things that I ignored because I knew how to build a freaking

1:03:32

business. and a show and talk to an

1:03:34

audience and broadcast and edit audio and

1:03:36

get it into people's hearts and minds and

1:03:38

have them share it and have them be on my side

1:03:40

and help my business. I look at all these things

1:03:43

I just went I wrote them off

1:03:45

and just focused on the fact that it took me eleven

1:03:47

years the first time to build it and then, you know,

1:03:49

cried for two weeks. and then sleep,

1:03:51

and then realized, wait a minute, this is It's

1:03:53

not possible for it to take nearly as

1:03:55

long because I have these skills I didn't have, and

1:03:57

I know all these things I didn't know. And

1:03:59

for some reason because I had

1:04:02

lost my identity in my mind,

1:04:04

and I felt like didn't I couldn't find

1:04:06

it, I felt like the rest of it was impossible,

1:04:08

and none of that was true. I'm so

1:04:10

glad that that's where he brought us to because those

1:04:12

three questions are so important

1:04:15

whenever you're facing these kinds of things because we

1:04:17

tend to romanticize our

1:04:20

past. We say that our success

1:04:23

or the thing that we're good at or the thing that we're comfortable

1:04:25

with now was the product of some kind of circumstance.

1:04:28

And that circumstance was fortunate

1:04:30

for us and may not be able

1:04:32

to be repeated. It's like it's so crazy

1:04:35

because we hear a lot about how you're supposed

1:04:37

to own your failures. Own your failures.

1:04:39

I mean, we talked about earlier today, you know, like, failure

1:04:41

can be data. man, we gotta own our success

1:04:43

too. We gotta look back and say, you know,

1:04:46

I did something. It wasn't luck.

1:04:48

And the reason that I have whatever

1:04:50

I am comfortable with right now was because I navigated

1:04:53

a whole bunch of things and they weren't all easy

1:04:55

and it took a long time. Right? I have

1:04:57

my own version of the story that you just told. I mean,

1:04:59

the first time I experienced it and I've experienced it many

1:05:01

times, but first one was I worked at Boston magazine

1:05:03

as my very first magazine job. I was like twenty

1:05:05

seven or something. And then I got offered to work

1:05:08

at men's health. National magazine moved

1:05:10

to New York. The big time was like so

1:05:12

excited about it. It was like twenty seven, twenty eight. I really

1:05:14

I paused. And the reason was because I

1:05:16

had done so well because you didn't have

1:05:18

a six pack and I still don't. I will

1:05:21

assure you. You have to

1:05:23

have one of those working myself. Yeah. Every guy in

1:05:25

the cupboard. The dirty secret of course is that, like,

1:05:27

nobody at the magazine except for the fitness

1:05:29

editor actually has a six pack. you know, they make

1:05:31

a good magazine. Sure. So I

1:05:33

was so concerned that I had done well at

1:05:35

Boston magazine. I had made a lot of friends. I

1:05:37

wrote lot of features. did well.

1:05:39

And I thought Maybe this is circumstance.

1:05:42

Maybe this is that

1:05:44

I reached the right magazine at the right time, I

1:05:46

made friends

1:05:46

with the right people, and I don't know if

1:05:48

I can repeat

1:05:49

this. Can I go to another place?

1:05:51

Can I start over and have the same

1:05:53

kind of success? And it

1:05:55

really helped to be able to go back. I mean, you

1:05:57

go to those questions that you would ask for my book.

1:05:59

Question number one, what did I overcome?

1:06:01

Go back and think about all the really crappy

1:06:04

stuff that was there

1:06:06

along the way to whenever you're

1:06:08

you have now. I mean, you forget it because this

1:06:10

crazy thing that happens in our brain called fading affect

1:06:13

where the emotions associated with bad memories

1:06:15

fade a lot faster than the emotions associated with

1:06:17

good memories. So it's harder to recall

1:06:19

in a visceral way. The bad things that

1:06:21

happened, trauma is a separate issue, but, you know, like,

1:06:24

just sort of normal experience. And so you forget.

1:06:26

You forget. But if you spend some time

1:06:28

being like, what did I overcome? What were the

1:06:30

bad things? Oh, well, there was a

1:06:32

time where I botched a story so bad

1:06:34

that the staff writer yelled at me and they didn't talk

1:06:36

me two weeks, there was this time where, like, I couldn't

1:06:39

figure how to edit story and they literally had to take

1:06:41

it away from me and give it to somebody else. Like, this wasn't

1:06:43

just me like cake walking through. It was hard

1:06:45

and I had to figure it out.

1:06:47

So once I know that, I can say,

1:06:49

well, question two, what skill set did I have then

1:06:51

that I have now? I mean, you know, the answer

1:06:53

for me, I think, was like, I was a hard worker

1:06:55

and I was able to learn. I'm personable,

1:06:58

so I I was able to build good relationships. I

1:07:00

still have these things. I'm a good pattern matcher.

1:07:02

And, you know, it's like important to know what I'm good at.

1:07:05

And then number three, like like you asked,

1:07:07

what do I know now that I did not know

1:07:09

them? I know a lot I

1:07:10

know about how to edit stories I

1:07:12

know how to establish myself inside

1:07:15

of magazine. I know how to function

1:07:17

inside of this kind of workplace. I am

1:07:19

in fact far more prepared for this next

1:07:21

thing than I thought and all it takes is going

1:07:23

back to realizing that like I was

1:07:25

actually the source of my own success.

1:07:27

And I say this not to, like, praise me,

1:07:29

but, like, you should do this when you're listening yourself.

1:07:31

Like, you are the source of your own success.

1:07:33

You just are. It wasn't some weird coincidence.

1:07:36

And because of that, when change comes, you

1:07:38

have things to fall back on things that you didn't even

1:07:40

know about, and those are the things that are going to

1:07:42

carry you forward. The more that we can just see these

1:07:45

as opportunities instead of as

1:07:47

resets the more that we can say

1:07:49

I am prepared for what comes next even

1:07:52

if I don't exactly know what it is. I love that.

1:07:54

It's almost like this sort of dovetails

1:07:56

with imposter syndrome and

1:07:58

is the opposite of that self serving

1:07:59

bias that a lot of people have where they're

1:08:02

like every success I have is due to own doing,

1:08:04

but every failure I have is someone else's fault. This

1:08:06

is kind of like the inverse of that. And I noticed a lot

1:08:08

of people who have impostor syndrome are

1:08:10

also high performers. And a lot of high performers

1:08:12

also have whatever the opposite of

1:08:14

that self serving bias is where they go,

1:08:17

well, my success is due to luck,

1:08:19

hard work a little bit, timing and

1:08:22

opportunity that fell into my lap, but

1:08:24

all of my failures. Okay. Those are

1:08:26

I can own some of those. So there's a lot of,

1:08:28

like, not owning your successes. And

1:08:30

so I almost think that successful

1:08:33

people have a tougher time with a lot

1:08:35

of this change because they don't necessarily

1:08:38

see all of these positive things that they had.

1:08:40

like, in my example, I didn't see

1:08:42

most of the positive things that I've done

1:08:44

is something that I could replicate. I looked at them

1:08:46

as, well, we started early, and then we had

1:08:48

all this time in the market. And all

1:08:50

this stuff befell us, and the topic was magic

1:08:52

at the time. And I wrote this wave of of

1:08:54

podcasting and dating stuff and whatever.

1:08:57

But none of that turned out to really be the

1:08:59

defining truth of what was going to

1:09:01

make the Jordan harbinger show successful.

1:09:03

And here we are, which is kind of

1:09:05

funny, but also like man, I coulda used a little

1:09:07

heads up there universe slash

1:09:09

wish I'd read your book. With respect to big changes

1:09:12

you wrote, don't wait for the moment of pain.

1:09:14

Look for the moment of awareness.

1:09:17

Sounds brilliant. What

1:09:18

does it mean? It's so important because I think

1:09:20

that what we focus on way too often.

1:09:22

is the thing that we feel like we're losing

1:09:25

or the thing that we feel like we've already done

1:09:27

or the thing that we feel like we've built, people

1:09:29

go through changes in four phases. I've talked

1:09:31

a bit about is your panic adaptation

1:09:33

new normal wouldn't go back. I think the hardest

1:09:36

phase of it all, weirdly isn't panic.

1:09:38

The hardest phase of it all is wouldn't go

1:09:41

back. And the reason for that is because once

1:09:43

we go through this whole thing and

1:09:45

we get to a point where we're now

1:09:47

newly comfortable, better than we

1:09:49

were before. We have built something great.

1:09:51

We say, I have this thing that's so new and valuable

1:09:53

that wouldn't want to go back to time before I had it.

1:09:56

The most

1:09:57

Terrible thing is going to happen,

1:09:59

which

1:09:59

is that the cycle

1:09:59

is gonna start all over again. And

1:10:02

and this thing that you have built that you are so happy

1:10:04

with is going to have to change again.

1:10:07

And the most successful

1:10:09

people that I meet have built

1:10:12

that reality into

1:10:14

the way that they operate. They may not know how

1:10:16

it's gonna change, but they know that it is

1:10:18

going to change.

1:10:19

I am fascinated by talking to

1:10:21

people who make massive

1:10:24

changes in their lives and business before they

1:10:26

are forced to because they understand that

1:10:28

by the time they're forced to do it, they're out of

1:10:30

options. They can't see what the right decision

1:10:32

is or their options are limited.

1:10:34

Story always pops to mind of the sky.

1:10:37

Sam has started dogfish the brewing company

1:10:39

and he made

1:10:39

this beer called sixty minute IPA.

1:10:42

It's a wonderful beer. People love it. They desire

1:10:44

it. They're calling him very quickly. This beer

1:10:46

rockets

1:10:46

up to become, like, seventy five to eighty percent

1:10:48

of all sales of dolphins where it's on track to be. There's

1:10:51

a defining. It's a defining

1:10:52

thing. And you could say, that's what we're out

1:10:54

there to do. We're out there have a success. Right?

1:10:56

But Sam knows, Sam has built this

1:10:58

awareness into him

1:10:59

that the opportunity is larger

1:11:01

than any one moment. The opportunity

1:11:03

is in the change. And what he

1:11:05

knows is that when everybody is calling for

1:11:08

this one beer, when everybody all the restaurants and all

1:11:10

the bars everybody wants to order this one beer,

1:11:12

he has got himself a hit product that he can make a bunch

1:11:14

of money on, but he's got a prop and the problem is

1:11:16

that tastes change. If you build that into

1:11:18

your awareness that something is gonna change, then

1:11:20

what are you gonna do? He knows that if everybody

1:11:23

just encounters his beer everybody

1:11:25

just encounters dogfish and says,

1:11:27

oh, I know that one beer that they make. Well, then

1:11:29

that's cool for a while until that

1:11:32

beer stops being as popular or IPAs

1:11:34

stop being as popular. And then he doesn't have a hit

1:11:36

product, then he isn't a hot

1:11:37

brand, then he's an old brand. And

1:11:39

so what Sam did was

1:11:40

he limited his sales of his best selling

1:11:42

product. He capped sales at

1:11:45

fifty percent. So again, this beer could have been seventy

1:11:47

five, eighty percent of all sales of dogfish he capped

1:11:49

at a fifty percent which means that people are screaming

1:11:51

at him on the streets in Delaware. They literally screaming

1:11:53

at him on the streets in Delaware because he's

1:11:55

got like bar and restaurant owners and

1:11:57

people want to have this hot local beer, and

1:11:59

they are not

1:11:59

carrying it. And it's like, why aren't you carrying it?

1:12:02

So then they go and they scream at Sam. And

1:12:04

I asked Sam, like, would did you ever consider

1:12:06

that this was a bad idea? And he said no,

1:12:08

because I understood that this

1:12:10

was the opportunity. It was an opportunity

1:12:12

to introduce new styles of beer to people. It was an

1:12:14

opportunity to say, you know what, we just make this one beer.

1:12:16

He would say, look, I'm really sorry we make this fresh.

1:12:18

We just don't have it available right now, which was like half a

1:12:21

lie because he could have had it available. But anyway, like,

1:12:22

why not instead?

1:12:24

Try our says on. Why not instead, carry

1:12:26

our whatever. That is how Sam

1:12:28

built a company that became known, not

1:12:30

an IPA brand that became an old brand,

1:12:33

but rather as an innovative brand.

1:12:35

And he sold that thing for three hundred million dollars.

1:12:37

And that is not what

1:12:39

you do. If you do not believe

1:12:41

the change is coming and you do not build it

1:12:44

into the way that you think about the